IONS Noetic Now Blog Comments: What’s the Matter with Miracles?http://noetic.org/blog/whats-the-matter-with-miracles/<p>
Some days I wake up and it hits me all over again. There&rsquo;s a lot of science going on in the world, but how many people get to work at a place where a few very brainy and dedicated scientists are measuring the farthest reaches of the mind for clues to higher levels of the human experience?</p>
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I am equally awed by the experts making discoveries in neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and cures for incurable diseases, but for nearly 40 years, our scientists have been working outside the &ldquo;safety zones&rdquo; of research in an area that skeptics throw darts at all day long. Thankfully, like the buffer of being inside a 2000-pound electromagnetically shielded room, IONS has created a refuge for the kind of research that measures evidence for things that can&rsquo;t be explained by conventional science. Now bolstered by scientific evidence, matters of consciousness (the spirit, the soul, interconnectedness, wisdom traditions, etc.) that once stood on faith are opening eyes in established institutions (corporations, education, even the military) and helping to bring widespread positive change in the world.</p>
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Some of that evidence has been discovered in IONS&rsquo; <a href="http://bit.ly/aMTu6s">research lab</a>&mdash;that 2000-pound electromagnetically shielded room&mdash;which was recently moved to <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;source=s_q&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=Foundry+Wharf+Business+Park,+2nd+Street,+Petaluma,+CA&amp;aq=0&amp;sll=37.0625,-95.677068&amp;sspn=32.114675,85.869141&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=Foundry+Wharf+Business+Park,&amp;hnear=2nd+St,+Petaluma,+California&amp;ll=38.231641,-122.630424&amp;spn=0.007349,0.020964&amp;z=16" target="_blank">our new river campus</a> in Petaluma. In the new digs, IONS will be expanding into three new research areas:</p>
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1. A new wet lab will allow our scientists to look for evidence of an interconnection between the human mind and the human body <em>at a genetic level</em>. According to our senior scientist Dean Radin, &ldquo;If gene expression changes because the physiology changes from some baseline condition, it suggests that we can pursue deeper levels where mind and body connect.&rdquo;</p>
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2. &ldquo;Heartbeat evoked potential&rdquo; is an experiment in which Dean and his colleagues will be taking simultaneous measurements of EEG and the autonomic nervous system in search of a correlation: Do heartbeats stimulate brain activity?</p>
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3. Dean&rsquo;s ultimate goal with the &ldquo;heartbeat evoked potential&rdquo; experiment is to see if the heartbeat of one person can stimulate brain activity in another person. (Did I mention I love my job?)</p>
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At one point in time, discoveries like these would have been considered miracles. In fact, a lot of our work deals with topics&mdash;spontaneous remission of disease, precognition, and distant intention, for example&mdash;that are still considered spiritual events or miracles by many.</p>
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&ldquo;If you see a miracle,&rdquo; Dean explained to me recently, &ldquo;after the initial awe, your impulse usually is to ask, &lsquo;How did that happen?&rsquo; In science, you need a plausible argument&mdash;or an argument that is perceived as plausible&mdash;to explain it.&rdquo;</p>
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Is that what IONS does, look for some mechanistic proof or rational explanation for miracles? Can&rsquo;t we just have faith? That can be a prickly issue for some, but the other thing we are finally seeing, especially in the last few years, is that consciousness research is where forward-thinking <a href="http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/" target="_blank">scientists and spiritual thinkers</a> are beginning to gather, having concluded there is so much more to learn and that everyone may have a part of the answer. We have only to look at the steady increase in <a href="http://bit.ly/qqmlNo">research on meditation</a> to appreciate the impact.</p>
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Change is the great paradox in human evolution: it&rsquo;s one of the things we fear most yet the most we have to fear if neglected. <a href="http://nature.ca/notebooks/english/woolly.htm" target="_blank">Ask Woolly Mammoth</a>. Yet evidence from our laboratory and applications in real life have re-set the stepping stones that Western cultures have tip-toed across these last four decades: They lead to the reality of our interconnectedness and the fact that consciousness matters&mdash;even in miracles.</p>
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What do you think? Should we be looking for &ldquo;the matter&rdquo; in miracles?</p>
en-usThu, 13 Dec 2012 15:55:24 -0800lisa_leehttp://noetic.org/blog/whats-the-matter-with-miracles/#comment_3323Absolutely yes we should! If it could be proven,the possibilities are infinite. Wow!Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:41:14 -0700http://noetic.org/blog/whats-the-matter-with-miracles/#comment_3323ChrisHickshttp://noetic.org/blog/whats-the-matter-with-miracles/#comment_3331Of course we should be looking for the "matter" in miracles! It is part of the human condition to be curious, to explore and explain. I believe that as we learn more and more we will find that faith, spirituality and science will become closer and closer until, we attain a state of truth and clarity where there is no need to assign these separate labels. In the end spirit and science are the same. For now spirit is acceptance based on faith, whereas science is acceptance based on proven theories. It is really a matter of perception on a linear track. Fast forward a bit and we will be in an entirely different position. One need only compare humankind's understanding of science one hundred years ago to where we are today. So much of what we know as proven science today was completely unexplainable one hundred or two hundred years ago. Just think how much our understanding will change in the next hundred years!!!Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:09:16 -0700http://noetic.org/blog/whats-the-matter-with-miracles/#comment_3331pantaneirohttp://noetic.org/blog/whats-the-matter-with-miracles/#comment_3475Sou brasileiro e é a primeira vez que entro neste site, mais eu tenho videncia e consigo me comunicar com os "mortos" e não tem barrreira de tempo e o tempo na verdade é criação do homem tudo é um quantum. moro no pantanal e posso viajar em varias dimensoes.Thu, 10 Nov 2011 04:30:54 -0800http://noetic.org/blog/whats-the-matter-with-miracles/#comment_3475Sungon9http://noetic.org/blog/whats-the-matter-with-miracles/#comment_4639I wish you guys could get more funding. You guys have a great objective in your mind and you aspire to goals that most scientists do not assume possible.... Unfortunately, I'm afraid you all are just ahead of your time. Technology today does not allow us to learn about consciousness scientifically, only skimming the surface, and that will be the case until many years. It will also take mainstream popularity for this research to move forward. As it is now, in my opinion, what you all are doing is great, but almost futile until the future.Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:28:48 -0800http://noetic.org/blog/whats-the-matter-with-miracles/#comment_4639Jeanine Broderickhttp://noetic.org/blog/whats-the-matter-with-miracles/#comment_7085If we would stop calling them miracles and begin seeing them as unexplained but explainable phenomena we would see more of them. When we can measure thought waves we will be able to easily see the correlation between "miracles" and thoughts.
I have to disagree with the 2nd part of Sungon's post - that you are ahead of your time. Yes, you are in the lead but it is time for someone to take that lead. There is never a crowd at the forefront. Unless and until someone takes that lead and moves it forward main steam won't move. You are ahead of main stream but this is the time for these things to be researched.
I also think that many factors are merging and we are moving toward a sort of revelation of knowledge. I see a time when NOW is considered a dark age of information but the sun is just below the horizon and will rise soon. We are getting so close to understanding the next level. Pieces are being put into place by many hands all working on the same puzzle. Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:55:24 -0800http://noetic.org/blog/whats-the-matter-with-miracles/#comment_7085